


By Request Only

by ThrillingDetectiveTales



Category: The Pacific (TV)
Genre: Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-19
Updated: 2020-04-19
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:13:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23730637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThrillingDetectiveTales/pseuds/ThrillingDetectiveTales
Summary: Andy huffed a breath and turned his head just far enough to murmur, “S’at?”“Hmm?” Eddie dragged his fingers up over the crown of Andy’s head and back down again.Andy groaned, eyes rolling even though they were still closed, and sighed, “Y’r singin’.”“Oh.” Eddie’s fingers stilled for a second and then he curled his hand into a self-conscious fist against the ball of Andy’s shoulder, brushing his knuckles up and down. “Ain’t nothin’. Just a song I like.”
Relationships: Andrew A. "Ack-Ack" Haldane/Edward "Hillbilly" Jones
Comments: 11
Kudos: 47
Collections: Heavy Artillery: The Pacific Tenth Anniversary Comment Fest





	By Request Only

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LT_Aldo_Raine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LT_Aldo_Raine/gifts).



> Written for Heavy Artillery’s The Pacific 10th Anniversary Comment Fest, for the prompt:
> 
> “Andy/Eddie - guitar”
> 
> Gratuitous fluff, not beta-read at all. Enjoy!!

**August 16, 1943**  
_Melbourne_

Andy stirred in the small hours of the morning, when dawn was just starting to bleed through at the edges of the ruffled curtain hanging over the window on the far side of the room. He wasn’t quite awake, mind still half-submerged in sleep, so he took a deep, slow breath through his nose and sighed it out against the warm skin of Eddie’s chest, rising and falling beneath his stubbled cheek.

He was vaguely aware of Eddie’s hands, one stroking aimlessly along Andy’s bare flank while the fingers of the other shifted against his shoulder in short, familiar patterns that Andy couldn’t quite place. Eddie was humming something under his breath, quiet and a little off-key, every other note fading out as he did his best not to disrupt Andy’s slumber. He smelled like sweat and sex, the last lingering vestiges of some spicy cologne he’d picked up when they made land in Brisbane. The bouquet of it all made Andy’s dick twitch where it was nestled against Eddie’s hip and Andy felt himself rise and dip back down again as Eddie laughed underneath him.

“Sorry, darlin’,” he drawled, trailing his hand from Andy’s hip up his back to the nape of his neck. “Didn’t mean to wake you.”

Andy hummed his forgiveness, turning his face so that his nose was pressed against Eddie’s sternum, and pushed up into the careful drag of Eddie’s fingers where they scrubbed through the close-cropped hair behind Andy’s ear. The sensation raised gooseflesh in a prickling wave all down his spine. Andy grunted his pleasure into Eddie’s chest and Eddie laughed again.

It was a hell of a way to wake up. Andy’d become spoiled for it over these past months, the whole battalion posted up near enough to polite society for once that he and Eddie managed on gratifyingly regular occasion to sneak away for the kind of liberations Andy had only dreamed of back on Guadalcanal.

Eddie petted at his hair for a while, letting Andy come back to himself at his own lazy pace. He started humming again between one breath and the next, the same soft melody rising over the distant trill of birdsong. His other hand was back on Andy’s shoulder again, too, fingers shifting in those patterns that drifted just beyond the boundaries of Andy’s memory.

Andy huffed a breath and turned his head just far enough to murmur, “S’at?”

“Hmm?” Eddie dragged his fingers up over the crown of Andy’s head and back down again.

Andy groaned, eyes rolling even though they were still closed, and sighed, “Y’r singin’.”

“Oh.” Eddie’s fingers stilled for a second and then he curled his hand into a self-conscious fist against the ball of Andy’s shoulder, brushing his knuckles up and down. “Ain’t nothin’. Just a song I like.”

Andy heaved another slow, satisfied breath and tilted his face up, shifting until his chin rested against Eddie’s sternum. “S’nice,” he said. “What song is it?”

Eddie huffed an amused little snort through his nose and pushed Andy’s hair up off his forehead with a gentle pass of his palm. His eyes were blue like the deep ocean in the shadowed room, the gauzy beams of sunlight peeking in past the curtains gilding his tawny eyelashes and streaking gold through his curls where they stuck up at all angles in a wild halo.

“Some Bob Wills number,” Eddie said, one corner of his mouth lifting a dimple into his cheek. “Heard it on the radio coupla weeks back.”

“I like it,” Andy murmured, and brought the arm he had slung over Eddie’s waist up until he could brush his thumb along the rungs of Eddie’s ribs—softer now, after a few months of steady meals and routine indulgence. “Oughta do it proper someday.”

Eddie hummed his agreement and nodded, “It’s simple enough I just ‘bout got the chords figured.” Almost as though he didn’t realize he was doing it, Eddie unfurled the hand he had against Andy’s shoulder and ghosted his fingertips across Andy’s skin. “G,” he said, and then his fingers shifted again. “D. Coupla others. Nothin’ too fancy.”

Ah, Andy thought. So _that_ was what the patterns had been.

Eddie started humming again, a little louder this time. It rumbled up through his chest and buzzed against Andy’s skin where they were pressed together.

Andy tilted his head but he couldn’t quite make out the clock from this angle. “What time is it?”

Eddie glanced over to check. “Half-seven,” he provided, “give or take a few minutes.”

“We’re not due back ‘til two o’clock,” Andy considered. Eddie made a soft sound of agreement and stroked at Andy’s hair. “And the room is ours until lunchtime if we want it.”

“It is,” Eddie confirmed. He arched an eyebrow, teasing, “Why? You on some kind of schedule?”

“Not especially,” Andy said, and then turned and dropped a kiss to the nearest part of Eddie he could reach, which happened to be the expanse of skin just over his heart. He lifted his head and raised his eyebrows, smirking small and hopeful. “I thought we might use a little of that time to make some music of our own.”

Eddie rolled his eyes and shook his head but that little curve to his mouth split into a real smile, belying his amusement.

“God save me from smooth talking college boys,” he sighed to the ceiling, while Andy shimmied the few inches it took to put him in kissing distance of Eddie’s mouth. “Lord knows they’ll be the death of me.”

“We’ll certainly put forth our best efforts,” Andy agreed gamely and leaned in to catch Eddie’s laughter on his tongue.

***

**March 11, 1944**  
 _Pavuvu_

“Alright boys,” Eddie said, as the hot Pacific night swallowed up the last fading notes of an A minor chord where it stuck on the gummy air. “Think that’ll just about do me.”

“Oh, come on!” somebody hollered.

“One more!” another voice insisted, and then the whole mess of marines ringing the low fire stirred from the haze of illicit, tent-brewed liquor to protest his departure en masse.

“San Antonio Rose!” came a twanging drawl, with another voice right on its heels, correcting in a sloppy slur, “No, no! Li’l Liza Jane! It’s Li’l Liza Jane or it’s nothin’!”

“I Wanna Be a Cowboy’s Sweetheart!” still another clamored, so fast it all ran together into a single, barely intelligible word.

“Sorry, fellas,” Eddie shrugged, shifting his guitar off to his side and pressing a palm to his breast. “Early muster tomorrow. Skipper’ll have all our asses if we show up late.”

The chorus of groans and disappointed mutterings swelled in volume and burst overhead like a balloon filled past capacity, but it was largely for show. Most of the men followed Eddie’s example, heaving one another up until they managed to wobble their way to standing and then shuffling off together toward the waiting comfort of their standard issue cots.

Ordinarily, Eddie would check up on his boys before he turned in for the night, but he was pleasantly submerged a few glasses deep into the sea of homemade hooch himself, and it looked like most of the weapons platoon was making a reluctantly good natured retreat from the impromptu campfire sing-along, anyway. 

He swung his guitar onto his back and waved over his shoulder. “Sweet dreams, boys.”

Eddie meandered his way along the poorly paved gravel streets, hands thrust into his pockets and face tilted up toward the stars, nodding the occasional greeting at a passing marine. It was a far cry from the terror of picking his way through the shadowed underbrush on Guadalcanal and he made quick work of the journey.

There was lamplight still flickering in the tent as he approached, stepping in to discover Andy bowed over a writing desk that was about a foot too short for a man of his stature, with his nose damn near skimming the paperwork he was squinting down at.

“Thought you was headed to bed near on an hour ago,” Eddie observed, and bit his lip against a smile when Andy jumped.

“Hi,” Andy said, the concentrated furrow between his brows smoothing out while the taut purse of his mouth eased into a grin. He rolled his shoulders back and pulled his neck to one side, then the other. “I was planning to, but I got sucked into these requisition forms.” He tapped his knuckles against the shallow stack of papers on his desk.

Eddie sucked his teeth and lifted the strap of his guitar off over his head, carefully propping the instrument up against the chest at the foot of his cot. “‘spect they’ll keep ‘til tomorrow,” he observed, arching a pointed eyebrow in Andy’s direction.

“I know,” Andy sighed, and scrubbed a hand over his face. He wiped his palms briskly over his knees and then pushed to his feet, striding across the space so that he could linger at Eddie’s shoulder while Eddie bent down to untie his boots. “How was the concert?”

Eddie shot him a look but Andy just grinned, utterly unapologetic and entirely too pleased with himself. “Fine,” Eddie said. He lined his boots up neatly next to his guitar and put a hand against his cot for balance while he toed off his stockings. “Boys seemed to like it well enough, anyway.”

“I’m sure they did,” Andy agreed, reaching out to get a hand on Eddie’s elbow—another point of support. “You’re a talented musician.”

“Bet you wish you’d brought your horn,” Eddie said, straightening up. “Coulda got a three-piece going.”

“Brass instrument’d be a bucket of rust by now,” Andy snorted. He let his hand fall to Eddie’s waist. “Woodwinds too, probably. It’s a wonder your strings are still intact, in all this damp.”

“Don’t go borrowing trouble, now,” Eddie warned, looping his arms around Andy’s shoulders.

It was a compromising position, but not so risky that Andy shrugged him off. He brought his other hand up so he had one spanning either side of Eddie’s waist, thumbs dipping under Eddie’s belt to rest against the blades of his hips. He leaned in to brush a quick kiss against Eddie’s mouth. Eddie’s eyes fluttered closed despite himself and he made a sharp noise of want in the back of his throat.

Andy hushed him, a gentle gust of breath that licked over Eddie’s cheek, and kissed him again, longer and deeper. After a moment he pulled back just far enough to say, “Next time you’ll have to save me a ticket.”

“Could just give you a private show,” Eddie countered, darting in to drop one final kiss, swift and fierce, against Andy’s mouth while he laughed. He stepped back after that, abandoning the heat of Andy’s embrace though he remained, as always, in Andy’s immediate orbit.

Miles removed from the crowded horror of the battlefield though Pavuvu might be, it was still better suited to public indulgences like raucous campfires and questionable moonshine than to more lascivious private ones. Those would have to wait for shore leave or, God willing, an end to this whole miserable conflict, though Eddie wasn’t about to hold his breath for either.

“I intend to take you up on that,” Andy assured him in a low, sweet rumble, reaching out just enough to tug at the cuff of Eddie’s sleeve. He licked his lips and sighed, shaking his head like he was clearing it, and continued at a more normal volume, “Best get some rest while we still can.”

“Sure thing, Skip,” Eddie nodded, and turned away.

Their nighttime routine was a well-practiced dance by now, and the two of them were tucked up in bed in a matter of moments. The night was alive all around them with distant snatches of conversation and the occasional skittering of crabs through the gravel and the ceaseless warbling of a thousand unidentifiable island insects but Eddie could still pick out the steady cadence of Andy’s breath a few feet away.

“Fella asked to hear a Bob Wills song,” Eddie offered after a moment. His eyes were stinging where he traced the shadowed curvature of Andy’s silhouette through the gritty Pacific moonlight, head heavy like it always got just before he fell asleep.

“Yeah?” Andy asked, in a gruff, tired rasp. “Which one?”

“Liza Jane,” Eddie murmured through a yawn.

Andy hummed. He was silent for a while—long enough that Eddie figured he must have dropped off. “Not my favorite.”

“Which’d that be?” Eddie licked his lips, closed his eyes, and nuzzled down into the deflated scrap of pillow nestled under his cheek.

“You know the one,” Andy said, the edges of his consonants buffed soft under the weight of his exhaustion.

Eddie huffed a laugh through his nose, a shallow gust of a breath. “Yeah,” he grinned, thinking back to a sunny Melbourne morning and a private room at a quaint little inn. “Reckon I do.”

Andy didn’t answer beyond a soft, wheezing snore, but Eddie didn’t mind. It was a familiar tune and one of Eddie’s favorites. With just a few high, thin bars it lulled him off to sleep, too.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
